I could have loved you, but I will repent
and spend all time repenting you,
who, in soft prayers you whispered true,
oblivious with my devotion, spent.
I could have scorned you dear — confess
you heard my sins but could not know
how deep this dreaded yearning burns below
but to proclaim myself would rend you less.
I, like the beaded garland, hang between
soft hands, but cannot wring them free
of folly prayers that you might bless on me,
or find me in the afterlight of beams.
Unfix me from your view or cast your glance
on high, on pews, or to the panes
that even through tempests and spring rains,
cast God’s best light toward you in a trance.
Oh, I could have loved you if the night
would, from me, spare the shame of day,
if my repentance could delay
mourning lovers and hell’s burning spite —
If you could spare me from your kind
and spiteless soul, I could repent;
if you were ever heartless and unkempt
in mind, but no; and not in God I bind
My secrecy from you, whose word reminds
me that if only I could love
the mother and her son above.
But, in you, my true devotion lies.
Mar 13
Mar 13, 2026 at 1:06 PM UTC
I could have loved you, but I will repent
and spend all time repenting you,
who, in soft prayers you whispered true,
oblivious with my devotion, spent.
I could have scorned you dear — confess
you heard my sins but could not know
how deep this dreaded yearning burns below
but to proclaim myself would rend you less.
I, like the beaded garland, hang between
soft hands, but cannot wring them free
of folly prayers that you might bless on me,
or find me in the afterlight of beams.
Unfix me from your view or cast your glance
on high, on pews, or to the panes
that even through tempests and spring rains,
cast God’s best light toward you in a trance.
Oh, I could have loved you if the night
would, from me, spare the shame of day,
if my repentance could delay
mourning lovers and hell’s burning spite —
If you could spare me from your kind
and spiteless soul, I could repent;
if you were ever heartless and unkempt
in mind, but no; and not in God I bind
My secrecy from you, whose word reminds
me that if only I could love
the mother and her son above.
But, in you, my true devotion lies.
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